Tag Archives: gender roles

Men and Pedicures: Macho duck – or “metro-sexual” from a Muslim land?

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man getting a paraffin pedicure

Macho duck or metro sexual from a Muslim nation? Looks like M. is somewhere in between!!!

When I last left you, I was sharing my story of exposure to the Arabian Nights thanks to my mother, who championed imagination and a broad world view uber alles when it came to raising her girls.  She did not, however, do much, as I recall, to counter any kind of gender stereotypes – or gender realities that might have been implanted in our young minds when it comes to gender relations.

These days, however, her daughter thinks A LOT about gender stereotyping, gender relations – and the exponential complexity of all of this when one is married to someone from a country that most people think is in the Middle East.  Of course, most Turks I know don’t think of Turkey as being in the Middle East – they think they are in Europe – and not just the folks on the European side of Istanbul, mind you.  I will, however, leave that topic alone, and get back to the item of the day, gender stereotypes.

These days, gender bending and discussions of the deconstruction of gender are a dime a dozen.  And perhaps this is why, a few years ago, a new term came into the vernacular – “metro-sexual.”  Wikipedia describes this as “a neologism derived from metropolitan and heterosexual coined in 1994 describing a man (especially one living in an urban, post-industrial, capitalist culture) who spends a time and money on shopping for his appearance.” And this, the term “metro-sexual” is what leads me to today’s commentary.  Let me start at the beginning.

Yesterday, when we awoke, M. was getting ready to walk our dog, which he does every morning on the early side, and complained that his feet were really hurting.  His heels were cracked and dry despite his best efforts to take care of them, and he was in pain. “I know what you need,” I said without thinking much, “you need a paraffin wax pedicure, that will help a lot!”  I sort of heard the shock and awe of my statement make its impact like a tsunami on the little chorus of dancing lady puppets, but before I could even think about that, M. responded without much thought at all by saying, “sure, good idea, let’s go today, we can do it together.”

At this statement, Karagöz began to holler and pound his chest like never before – and in fact – all of the male Karagöz puppets began to shake and shiver in shock.  Now of course, M. can’t see these puppets, so he had no idea what was behind the look of complexity on my face – instead he just focused on leaning in to kiss me goodbye before his walk with our canine companion – and in the process, knocked Karagöz dead off of his perch on my shoulder.

Crying out in rage and anger at this slight, Karagöz proclaimed “what kind of Muslim macho are you married to? None at all, I say! He must keep up with the manly culture! How can he do that when he is in a lady salon?  Horrors!  What kind of ‘metro-sexual’ nincompoop would allow himself to enter into the Wicked World of Women called The Salon? This is NOT acceptable!”  Not in the mood for engaging in cross-cultural dialogue with my puppets, I just turned to them, and said “welcome to 2012, puppets, no biggie, his feet hurt, he needs a paraffin wax.  Get over it.”  Not my best moment, but we all have our days.  The puppets decided to hop on my shoulders and just watch what happened, and that was the last I heard from them all day – I think they were really just ensconced in culture shock.

Male pedicure parrafin

...and here is my macho duck (not!) having his purple paraffin wax pedicure at the ladies salon!

Later that day, as we walk ed into the salon together, we joked about how M.’s posh brother (otherwise known as Mr. X.) often gets his feet “done” by a pedicurist.  I laughed to myself about trying to explain that to a recalcitrant stereotype-buying American when talking about men from Muslim-majority countries such as Turkey.  I also wondered about the roots of self-care in the hamam – or Turkish baths - which men certainly did, and do frequent in some families (although not in M.’s, they are too Euro-focused if you ask me and worry about all of those germs).

I felt really happy and free to have a male partner in life who was not at all uptight about the idea of going into a salon for a pedicure.  When I first met him, I noted that he loved buying lavender-scented hand cream for himself – and laughed off my friends’ comments that he might not be straight after all.  In this way, M. couldn’t be farther from the stereotypical macho male from a Muslim land.  While he may have a few macho moments – like the time he irked my stepsister for being to loud and competitive in a word puzzle game – there isn’t much of that to deal with that I can recall.

We had a great time relaxing our aching feet in the hot water, getting hot stone massages on our legs and dipping our feet into scented paraffin wax.  M. made merry with all of the people around us, it was a wonderful afternoon and our feet still feel super.

As I watched M. have his feet scrubbed and encased in hot purple paraffin, the song “macho macho duck” came into my head.  For those of you not in the know, Disney put out a disco record in 1979, and I used to know every word of it.  Donald Duck was featured as a “macho man” in duck form.  As I secretly whistled the tune in my head, I thought, M. sitting here, encased in hot wax, well, this makes my job of explaining that he ISN’T a macho, macho duck (to quote the old song), so much easier. M. is just who he is – and no worries about more or less – and indeed, shouldn’t we all have that luxury?

 

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A Karagözi intervention after multitasking with meatballs

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A terrifying image - the puppets tell me I am going down this road - thanks to this website for the image: http://www.motifake.com/the-modern-woman-bad-drivers-crankyhead-demotivational-posters-113611.html

Today was not my finest driving day.  Let me start by saying that despite being constantly exhausted and ready for a 2 hour nap just about any time of day, somehow, I am starting to get things done.  While the horrid on and off fevers and deep, phlegmy cough and dizziness have subsided somewhat, I am still totally tired, and literally surviving my commute and teaching moments via excessive amounts of caffeine and the eventual burst of adrenaline that comes when you have to talk to a group of students for 3 hours at a time.  The Karagöz puppet troupe is ever-present in my psyche through this time of strange health.  I think they are quite worried and don’t really get what is going on.  Sometimes they talk to me in a soupy, drawn out, slowed-down-recording voice and I realize it is because my brain is tired, slow and not functioning optimally.  Karagöz himself is pretty funny looking when he jumps up and down and twists – in slow motion.

The chain of tea delivery was in slow-motion as well, this morning, but it helped to get me up and out.  I even drove M. to work.  The little puppets were notso hot on this idea, but I was feeling the strength of morning and we managed to get there despite a lot of screeching along the way (“Watch the bicycle, how do men wear these pornographic outfits in this century?” the little ladies commented upon seeing a spandex-clad muscle man, shocked but fascinated in their Ottoman era temperaments).  Karagöz just tries to get my goat by calling me a “typical lady driver.” I ask him where he gets this term -as there are no cars in Ottoman times – and he says “watch, learn and listen, m’lady, my intellect will glisten and the television provides many revisions!”  Nonsense speak such as his takes time to decode.

Today, at one particularly chaotic moment, everything seemed to slow down as all of my efforts focused on forgetting my meatball sandwich and instead not hitting the parked car I was heading for.  I woke up early, ready to meet a colleague before 2 student meetings, a doctor’s appointment and another student meeting after that – all in different locations in my trafficky New England town.  Sleepy even after a super venti latte, I downed a Red Bull energy drink.  The puppets were up to their usual tricks to keep me awake – pinching body parts, opening the window wide for fresh air shock treatment and screaming punk rock lyrics at the top of his lungs, Karagöz was at the center of it all.  As I was chugging the cough-syrupy but enticing and powerful stuff, I remembered a conversation with a student from the previous day…she had caught sight of me downing a Red Bull and said -”Really, Dr. Professor, you are REALLY drinking a Red Bull? I thought only rave kids drank that.”  Yup, that’s me, the caffeine addict of the moment, I thought, before I realized I was about to hit a parked car.  Narrowly averted, I gripped the wheel, and soothed the terrified puppets splayed all over the car after being thrown off of their perch on top of the back seat.  Many were cursing and shaking their fists at me for a bit, but they soon resumed their efforts to shepherd and guide me through my life despite their very different values.  The little chorus of dancing ladies, well, they just cannot seem to understand how it is that ladies go out and work – they are doing their best to accept this reality – while secretly scheming for other ways of life to enter in.

Juicy, soft, home-made köfte from Kenne Teyze, the wax paper puppet from the Ottoman empire era who is one of many who inhabit my head

I made it to the next stop on my busy agenda without incident.  Dragging myself out of there, having promised my nurse practitioner to at least eat a good lunch, full of protein, I stopped in an Italian deli and ordered a meatball submarine sandwich. “Totally un-ladylike, madam, not even good looking köfte, these are.”  Kenne’s patience with me was wearing thin.  She thought another week of bed rest would be a better option.  I ignored her, slumped to the side of the 1980s-decorated vinyl-sided wall, and closed my eyes for a bit, dreaming of her delicious thyme and red pepper-infused lamb meatballs.  Once the submarine sandwich was in hand, I dashed to the car to eat my lunch on the way to my next meeting.  I do this all the time, but rarely do I dump the whole damned sandwich in between my seat and the gear shift.  It happened in slow motion and I – along with the entire puppet troupe – screamed “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” as it played out perfectly – sauce everywhere.

So, it all got cleaned up.  I was a little late to see my student.  I didn’t have another accident, but tonight when I got home, the puppets staged an intervention.  They have determined, they tell me, that I have to be happy, healthy and safe in life, and something has to change.  They are engaging in a morning tea boycott until I can make some healthy choices in my life to get through this Lyme’s recurrence or walking pneumonia or whatever it is…at least until then, if not more, they are adding.  They hopped onto my laptop and jumped around on the keys (a great string of them, each on the other’s shoulders, so their wax paper selves would have enough weight to press the keys).  They are the ones who found the “modern woman” demotivational poster pictured above.  “You don’t want to be that woman!” they tell me, with grave, gravely voices and stern furrowed brows.  They are threatening to whisper to M. at night about the benefits of keeping me in a New England-style one-woman harem from now on…it’s getting into serious territory with these tiny wax paper figures in my brain.  Something’s gotta give, I guess it’s gotta be the meatball submarine sandwiches while driving…and the public consumption of red bull…and probably a lot more than that.   Let’s see what happens.